This week's episode has a very antipodean feel as our Australian host, Bryan, chats with another native Australian, Sascha McDonald. Sascha was a Founder and Non-Executive Director of Testing Performance which was recently acquired by Fimatix. A serial entrepreneur, Sascha chats about how the company got established in 2006 and why it took 15 years to find the perfect time to exit the business. He also discusses important things he learned during the sale process. The rapid fire favourite food d...
Apr 04, 2022•22 min•Ep 26•Transcript available on Metacast In Episode 23, we spoke to Charlie Cadbury of Say It Now on the acquisition of Get Started. In this episode, we get a view from the other side of that deal with our guest Norbert Horvath, the CEO & Founder of GetStarted. Was it a match made in heaven? Was it as easy and trouble-free as Charlie made out? Tune in to find out and don't miss Norbert's tips for tech entrepreneurs.
Mar 14, 2022•21 min•Ep 25•Transcript available on Metacast Our intrepid hosts are back! In this episode Bryan and Caroline chat with Say It Now Founder, Charlie Cadbury. If you've ever asked Alexa, Siri or Google a voice question, you'll be familiar with voice technology. Charlie's company creates voice apps and actionable audio ads to engage consumers over smart speakers. Charlie chats about the firm's rapid quick acquisition of GetStarted - a North American voice tech platform - which was done in just 100 days.
Feb 14, 2022•22 min•Ep 24•Transcript available on Metacast Joining our hosts this week is Jorge Juettner. Jorge was a self-described 'happy banker' at J.P Morgan before he decided to take the plunge to become Head of Partnerships at Ritmo, a company reinventing the way ecommerce businesses gain financing. Jorge talks about the business model and how Ritmo provides quick decisions and flexibility in repayments for growing ecommerce businesses. In the rapid fire round, Jorge takes the prize for the strangest place our podcast guests have visited....
Nov 29, 2021•21 min•Ep 23•Transcript available on Metacast Our snacking chatters are back after a brief hiatus to talk with Nishant (Nish) Varma from Safe Obstetrics. Nish chats about the groundbreaking medical device, the Fetal Pillow®, his father developed to help mothers and babies during a C-section. He explains how the firm broke into the American market, ultimately leading to the firm being acquired by CooperSurgical in early 2021.
Nov 15, 2021•17 min•Ep 22•Transcript available on Metacast This week our hosts are joined by Michael Holmes. Michael is the Chief Commercial Officer at Scale Space, Scale Space is a scale up community located in London and Nottingham designed specifically to help innovative businesses accelerate growth. In this episode Michael chats about his earlier career experience at PwC M&A Strategy - where he once got paid to go out to eat as many burgers as possible! He also chats about his new role at Scale Space, his ambitions for the concept and the scale up e...
Sep 06, 2021•22 min•Ep 21•Transcript available on Metacast Joining Caroline and Bryan this week is Jon Dawson who heads up the Creative, Media and Technology team at haysmacintyre, an award winning firm of chartered accountants and tax advisors. Jon often gets involved in M&A matters at a very early stage. He chats about the impact of Covid on various sectors, M&A transactions, current valuations and why he loves working with companies in the tech sector. Despite being an excellent timekeeper, Jon is beaten by the klaxon on the 60 second Q&A challenge!...
Aug 09, 2021•22 min•Ep 20•Transcript available on Metacast This is Part 2 of a two part podcast. We continue our conversation Al Zucker, General Counsel at Heroes. He talks about share deals versus asset deals and which type the Heroes team prefers, and what terms are the most important for the sellers. He also provides some tips for entrepreneurs looking to sell their business.
Jul 26, 2021•15 min•Ep 19•Transcript available on Metacast This week we are joined by Al Zucker who is the General Counsel for Heroes. Heroes acquire Amazon FBA businesses. In his role, Al is involved in multiple deals from smaller-sized acquisitions right through to multi-million £ transactions. He talks about the process involved to get the deal done and how the post-deal integration and personal involvement with the sellers is so fulfilling - and how, even, when you are doing multiple M&A transactions, the process can't be likened to a sausage factor...
Jul 12, 2021•19 min•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast Bryan took some well-deserved time off recently, so co-hosting this week is Caroline's colleague Alexander Lamley. As Alexander does a lot of work on options schemes, we invited this week's guest Charlie Blair from Gravitricity to chat about all things options. Why put them in place, when to introduce an options scheme, how to allocate options and how they can be a great incentive when a business is scaling up.
Jun 28, 2021•23 min•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast Joining us this week is Riccardo Bruni of Heroes ( www.makeheroes.co ). Heroes is a serial acquirer, building a portfolio of category-leading Amazon marketplace companies. With that business model, Riccardo has gone through the acquisition process many times. In this episode he chats about acquiring these 'mom & pop' businesses in record speed, guiding the businesses through the acquisition process and how Heroes looks to add value post-acquisition.
May 24, 2021•20 min•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast During the dot.com boom, today's guest Sheetal Mehta Walsh told Bill Gates exactly what she thought! He gave her a mission and with luck, hard work and some wonderful mentors, Sheetal started the first corporate-based investment strategy in the tech industry. She's gone on to facilitate over $1bn in funding for entrepreneurs, founded her own company with her partner (and turned down a multi-million dollar acquisition offer), and has recently launched the UK’s first all-female led venture capital...
May 10, 2021•22 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast This week, Giles Thompson joins Bryan and Caroline to chat about his experience as a lawyer and his skills with the Ctrl. F keyboard function. Sensing that there was a better way to do things, Giles joined Avvoka to help both sides of the M&A process manage their contracts and documents more efficiently. And in this week's snack choice, Bryan manages a very back-handed compliment to his wife's baking!
Apr 26, 2021•20 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast Joining our hosts this week is Tong Gu. Tong is currently an Investment Lead at Accelerated Digital Ventures, where she looks for investment opportunities in AI and machine learning. Before joining Accelerated Digital Ventures, Tong co-founded her own data analytics startup in Shanghai and scaled the team as COO. She talks about the the lessons she learned as a startup founder and how she now uses that insight in her current role.
Apr 12, 2021•21 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast We're venturing into the world of legal tech this week with our guest Sam Smolkin, Founder & CEO at Office & Dragons. Sam chats about how pulling all-nighters as an M&A lawyer inspired him to launch a data solution for all those hundreds of legal documents that always seem to need a last minute change.
Mar 22, 2021•19 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast This week our hosts snack and chat with Ed Lea, CTO of Charge Fairy, whose mission is to get easy access to electric vehicle charging. Ed chats about how he started out building apps, creating a mobile employee engagement platform which led to a joint venture with Ceridian's LifeWorks business. Having conquered employee well-being, Ed is now focused on the planet's well-being. He wants to make it easy and convenient for people to charge their electric vehicles - no matter where they are.
Mar 08, 2021•21 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast We are joined this week by a more professional snacker, Justin Gayner. He explains how, after a disappointing encounter at Oddbins, he relaunched his career. He ended up hosting his very own snack-themed YouTube show, before successfully launching the History Hit network, which was acquired by Little Dot Studies in 2020.
Feb 22, 2021•22 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast Our guest this week is Douglas Brown, who sold his business Star Net Geomatics to an international buyer. He discusses the journey to successfully sell his business, which included a 3.5 hour car ride in the middle of the night with his lawyer and adviser.
Jan 11, 2021•20 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast A festive special full of seasonal snacks and surprise guests! Music: Christmas Spirit by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com Christmas Spirit is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Shane Ivers of silvermansound.com .
Dec 18, 2020•20 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast This week our intrepid hosts chat with Alex Hawes from Risk Capital Advisors, who explains all about M&A insurance, warranties, indemnities and mitigating risks involved in M&A transactions. He also manages to deflate our podcast hosts' egos by inviting some slightly better known podcasters to dinner in the rapid fire round.
Dec 14, 2020•22 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast Joining us this week is Charlie Hodges, Managing Director at Augusta & Co., an independent London-based specialist financial advisory and investment house serving the European renewable energy sector. Charlie discusses recent trends in the renewables space, areas that are expected to do well, and if we'll all be driving electric cars before long.
Nov 30, 2020•21 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, we chat with David Nix, Managing Director at Ready4Retirement. David has a view from both sides of the M&A equation, having sold his business and then bought it back.
Nov 16, 2020•21 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast Nick Wallis from the deal advisory team at Gerald Edelman chats about the deal negotiation process and how to best prepare your business to maximise saleability and value.
Nov 02, 2020•21 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast This week, our hosts are joined by Neil Norman from Chiene & Tait's entrepreuneurial tax department. He outlines some of the tax pitfalls to avoid when setting up and planning to sell your company. And, be warned, when it comes to his snack, it's a divisive choice.
Oct 19, 2020•20 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, we hear from Aundrea Insinna who built a thriving business from scratch through to its ultimate sale in 2019. Aundrea discusses how her business got started thanks to the SARs pandemic and the challenges of the sale process for an entrepreneur who finds the legal processes long and tedious!
Oct 05, 2020•22 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast In our first Snack & Chat episode, hosts Bryan Shaw and Caroline Urban are joined by MBM's co-founder, Stuart Hendry, to learn about how the firm was started and how he works with entrepreuneurs and investors - and why he compares dentistry to marmite!
Sep 21, 2020•22 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast 
